Why do I get "redefine" warnings with "use constant" under mod_perl?

Question

I run CGI script with apache2 and I have this warning lines in error.log (I removed all similar lines from the output):

[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] upload.pl: Constant subroutine ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::UPLOAD_DIR redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133.
Constant subroutine
    ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::BUFFER_SIZE redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133 (#1)
[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] upload.pl: Constant subroutine ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::BUFFER_SIZE redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133.
Constant subroutine
    ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::MAX_FILE_SIZE redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133 (#1)
[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] upload.pl: Constant subroutine ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::MAX_FILE_SIZE redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133.
Constant subroutine
    ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::MAX_DIR_SIZE redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133 (#1)
[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] upload.pl: Constant subroutine ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::MAX_DIR_SIZE redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133.
Constant subroutine
    ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::MAX_OPEN_TRIES redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133 (#1)
[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] upload.pl: Constant subroutine ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::MAX_OPEN_TRIES redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133.
Subroutine dir_size redefined at /home/stanislav/cgi/perl/upload.pl line 79,
     line 133 (#2)
[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] upload.pl: Subroutine dir_size redefined at /home/stanislav/cgi/perl/upload.pl line 79,  line 133.
Subroutine error redefined at /home/stanislav/cgi/perl/upload.pl line 90,
     line 133 (#2)
[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] upload.pl: Subroutine error redefined at /home/stanislav/cgi/perl/upload.pl line 90,  line 133.
Argument "" isn't numeric in numeric ge (>=) at
    /home/stanislav/cgi/perl/upload.pl line 62 (#4)
[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] -e: Argument "" isn't numeric in numeric ge (>=) at /home/stanislav/cgi/perl/upload.pl line 62.
Filehandle OUTPUT opened only for input at /home/stanislav/cgi/perl/upload.pl
    line 69 (#5)
[Thu Jul 30 09:39:37 2009] -e: Filehandle OUTPUT opened only for input at /home/stanislav/cgi/perl/upload.pl line 69.
Constant subroutine
    ModPerl::ROOT::ModPerl::Registry::home_stanislav_cgi_perl_upload_2epl::UPLOAD_DIR redefined at /usr/share/perl/5.10/constant.pm line 115,  line 133 (#1)

Why this lines are there and is there a way to stop them?

Code that makes this warnings (taken from book "CGI Programming with Perl", with some bugs fixed):

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;


use CGI;
use CGI::Carp;
#use diagnostics qw/-verbose/;

use Fcntl qw( :DEFAULT :flock );
use constant UPLOAD_DIR     => "/tmp/test_upload/";
use constant BUFFER_SIZE    => 16_384;
use constant MAX_FILE_SIZE  => 1_048_576;       # Limit each upload to 1 MB
use constant MAX_DIR_SIZE   => 100 * 1_048_576; # Limit total uploads to 100 MB
use constant MAX_OPEN_TRIES => 100;

$CGI::DISABLE_UPLOADS   = 0;
$CGI::POST_MAX          = MAX_FILE_SIZE;
my $q = new CGI;
$q->cgi_error and error( $q, "Error transferring file: " . $q->cgi_error );
my $file      = $q->param( "file" )     || error( $q, "No file received." );
my $filename  = $q->param( "filename" ) || error( $q, "No filename entered." );
my $fh        = $q->upload( "file" )     || error( $q, "Something is wrong with file handle." );
#my $fh        = $q->upload( $file );
my $buffer    = "";
if ( dir_size( UPLOAD_DIR ) + $ENV{CONTENT_LENGTH} > MAX_DIR_SIZE ) {
    error( $q, "Upload directory is full." );
}
# Allow letters, digits, periods, underscores, dashes
# Convert anything else to an underscore
$filename =~ s/[^\w.-]/_/g;
if ( $filename =~ /^(\w[\w.-]*)/ ) {
    $filename = $1;
}
else {
    error( $q, "Invalid file name; files must start with a letter or number." );
}
# Open output file, making sure the name is unique
until ( sysopen OUTPUT, UPLOAD_DIR . $filename, O_CREAT | O_EXCL ) {
    $filename =~ s/(\d*)(\.\w+)$/($1||0) + 1 . $2/e;
    $1 >= MAX_OPEN_TRIES and error( $q, "Unable to save your file." );
}
# This is necessary for non-Unix systems; does nothing on Unix
binmode $fh;
binmode OUTPUT;
# Write contents to output file
while ( read( $fh, $buffer, BUFFER_SIZE ) ) {
    print OUTPUT $buffer;
}
close OUTPUT;

if ( -T $fh ) {
    print $q->header("text/plain");
    seek $fh, 0, 0;
    map { print } ;
}

sub dir_size {
    my $dir = shift;
    my $dir_size = 0;

    # Loop through files and sum the sizes; doesn't descend down subdirs
    opendir DIR, $dir or die "Unable to open $dir: $!";
    while ( $_ = readdir DIR ) {
        $dir_size += -s "$dir/$_";
    }
    return $dir_size;
}
sub error {
    my( $q, $reason ) = @_;

    print $q->header( "text/html" ),
          $q->start_html( "Error" ),
          $q->h1( "Error" ),
          $q->p( "Your upload was not procesed because the following error ",
                 "occured: " ),
          $q->p( $q->i( $reason ) ),
          $q->end_html;
    exit;
}

This code have similar output: $ perl -e 'sub FOO () { 1 } BEGIN{ *FOO = sub () { 2 }; } print FOO;'

Constant subroutine main::FOO redefined at -e line 1.

I did put no warnings qw/redefine/ but it didn't help.

Answer 1

At a guess, the first definition of FOO is being optimized away. Define it with a statement in the body and I think you'll find the error disappears.

$ perl -e 'sub FOO () { print 1; } BEGIN{ *FOO = sub () { 2 }; } print FOO;'

Answer 2

AFAIK, you only get these warnings when you modify your script and then the script is re-compiled by mod_perl for subroutines that are eligible for inlining. When the subroutine is recompiled, if the the value it returns changed, that new value would not be reflected in the places where it was previously inlined.

If you change the value of, say, BUFFER_SIZE, you should re-start apache.

I also think mod_perl / Apache::Registry accidental closures is relevant to your script.